Herb was a demolitions engineer. He and his brother Louis were both on the same ship to Tarawa but never met after they landed. Herb was in the second wave while Louis was in the first.
"Amtracs on both sides of me got knocked out. I jumped out of our amtrac. I started back to get another load and it got knocked out, too.
We got up against that log wall. I looked at the men around me and it seemed like about 75 percent of them were wounded. I was lucky I didn't get a scratch.
Reagan is worried about more than his own safety. Somewhere on that hellfire beach is his older brother, Louis.
A few tanks get ashore, but some are unable to thread their way past the human litter of dead and wounded. They back out into the water. And start in again."
Herb and Louis Reagan.
Reprinted with permission.
Source: Tom Hennessey, "Remembering Tarawa," Press Telegram, 26 June 1988, p.5.
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